The following experiment will tell us more about it.
With a sheet of glass passed across the web, I gather a series of lime-threads which remain fixed in parallel lines.

I cover this sheet with a bell-jar standing in a depth of water.

Soon, in this atmosphere saturated with humidity, the threads become enveloped in a watery sheath, which gradually increases and begins to flow.

The twisted shape has by this time disappeared; and the channel of the thread reveals a chaplet of translucent orbs, that is to say, a series of extremely fine drops.
In twenty-four hours the threads have lost their contents and are reduced to almost invisible streaks.

If I then lay a drop of water on the glass, I get a sticky solution similar to that which a particle of gum arabic might yield.